


The Lost Orphanage of Shimane

by charcolor



Category: UTAU, Vocaloid
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Child Death, Gen, Mystery, Rescue, Self-Harm, Spirits, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, also. aged down characters. but there's no tag for that so ye, i guess? advagssg
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-11
Updated: 2018-09-21
Packaged: 2019-05-20 14:12:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 12,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14896074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charcolor/pseuds/charcolor
Summary: Everyone seems to know the legend of the immortal children of Shimane. Broken souls, stealing unsuspecting visitors and "playing" with them, the victims never to be heard from again.Everyone wants to see the children, to see if the legend is real. The Kagamine twins know it's real. What they really want to know is if the children are beyond saving.





	1. Miku's Disappearance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm back on my bullshit. the "bullshit" is my creepypasta phase
> 
> sorry if i don't update this for a while i have too many WIPs and not enough self control

My twin sister and I have always loved horror stories. We've always found ourselves extremely fixated onto them for days. Even with all the thrill we felt reading the stories, we knew that was all they were. Nothing like that existed in reality.

A few months after we graduated, we moved to Shimane with our best friend, Miku Hatsune. We found ourselves a nice little house to live in, sort of on the outskirts of town. We still haven't really finished unpacking all our furniture, but it ended up being really grinding to work so much to make our house habitable. 

"We can't open boxes in this stuffy house all day!" Miku insisted. To emphasize her point, she kicked an empty cardboard box on the floor. "We need to get outside! Get some fresh air! The woods are so pretty this time of year, we have to go see!"

I didn't want to waste time, but Rin told me to loosen up and take a break. "We haven't even gotten A.C. yet. If we don't get some air soon, we'll die. Is that how you wanna go, Len? You wanna die from unpacking too hard?"

She was clearly exaggerating, but I didn't want to be left alone to do the work on my own, and I didn't want to try to convince them to change their mind, so we got dressed and went out to a small diner for lunch, then decided to take a short hike in the woods near our new house.

At some point, Miku started slowing down. She got quiet, no longer joking around with us. Rin raised her eyebrows and tugged on her arm. "Are you okay, Miku?"

Miku nodded and flashed a grin. "Yeah, yeah. I just...wanna check something out real quick, okay?"

We didn't think much of it. We just nodded and let her branch off down a dirt trail. It took about fifteen minutes of idle conversation for us to realize that Miku had been gone for a while.

The sun began to set. Rin said to go home, that if Miku came out she could find her way, but it was dangerous. She still swears that she heard the echo of Miku's distant scream.

Something the dirt trail Miku went down tugged at my memory. I researched it the morning after, and sure enough, it was a horror story we'd enjoyed together a long time ago.

"Kagome Kagome." I showed Rin the text displayed on my laptop. "It even mentions the dirt trails. It sounds like the ones Miku went down."

"That has to be a coincidence." Rin barely glanced up at me, halfheartedly poking a spoon around in her vanilla yogurt. "There could've been a bear, or something."

"Miku isn't dead."

"I know." She paused. "But something made her scream."

"It says that the tree stumps look like headless people. And the orphanage itself is really creepy. So I think Miku was just scared."

"Why didn't she come back, Len?"

I held her hand and said nothing.

Miku is sort of an older sister figure to us. She's only older by a year and a few months, but she's always been there to comfort us and protect us. She's like any other best friend besides that. She's always cheerful, she always knows how to make things fun.

"She must be in danger," I decided. "Maybe she got lost. Those woods are easy to get lost in."

Rin nodded, finally taking a bite of her breakfast. After swallowing she replied, "We should try to find her."

"I  _just_  said that those woods are easy to get lost in."

"Not when there's two of us. There's no reception in there, but we can figure out some way to find each other. Like a really long string of red yarn." She paused to take another bite of her breakfast. "And if Miku finds the string, she could find us."

Rin always has crazy ideas like that. When I do go along with them, it's usually with some reluctance. But the difference is that Miku was in danger. I knew she wasn't dead, even if Rin insisted that she heard her scream. I knew that the only solution was to go into those woods and find her. Even if it meant getting close to that fabled haunted orphanage.

"Let's do it," I said.

Rin snapped her head back up. "Huh?"

"Let's look for Miku in the woods."


	2. The Girl With The Red Eye

Rin didn't think that we would need to bring any sort of survival gear, but I can't shake the feeling that finding Miku might take longer than we thought.

It's not like we have much to work with. A couple of knives for self-defense and some bread if we get hungry. I haven't had an appetite all day, though. I probably won't be able to eat much until we know Miku is safe.

"We have to look for truck trails," Rin reminds me. She grips my hand tightly as we walk, as if she's going to get pulled away any second. "Miku wouldn't have gotten lost if she went the other way."

We follow the path for a minute or so before stopping and looking up at each other.

"We don't need to go all the way down to the orphanage, do we?" I ask. "I don't think Miku would be there."

"How do you know it's real?"

I gesture to the tree stumps of our barren surroundings. "Look, they don't have heads. And it's a lot colder here than in the trees. The story's true."

Before Rin can respond, another voice echoes from the distance. I flinch, then ask, "Did you hear what they said?"

Rin nods. "They're crying for help, I think." She turns away. "You wait here, I'll--"

I grab her hand back. "No, Rin! This is how Miku got lost!"

"How do you know?"

The voice calls again, closer. I ignore it. "What else could it be? If you stray from the path, you get hopelessly lost, remember?"

"What if it's Miku?"

"Miku doesn't sound like that! She was lured away by--"

"Found you!"

The voice is now crisp and clear and completely unexpected. We whirl to face its owner. 

She's a small, pale girl with black, unkempt hair held in two pigtails. Her plain, light blue outfit looks like pajamas, especially since she has no shoes on her soil-stained feet. Before I can really see all the detail, my eyes are drawn to hers. One blue, one red. Her red eye is so strikingly vibrant that her blue eye almost seems lifeless.

Rin faces me to roll her eyes. "Lured away by who? This kid?"

"Shut up, Rin," I mutter, before kneeling to get on the girl's eye level. "Are you lost?"

She nods and rubs the back of her neck. Only now do I notice the paper-thin gauze hung loosely around it. "I didn't think I'd find my way out. I'm glad I heard you talking."

"What's your name?" Rin kneels as well. Her voice is a lot softer and sweeter when she's talking to children. That's probably a good thing.

The girl shifts her feet nervously before answering. "Ruko."

Rin looks over at me. "Do you think it's safe to help her find her way home, or--"

Ruko cuts her off. "I'm not going home."

"Huh?"

"My friends are in danger. I have to help them."

In danger? Like how Miku got lost? Are there more people wandering around in the woods? Or are they all victims to some predator?

Rin doesn't hesitate to keep interrogating. "Do you remember when you last saw them?"

"No. I don't know how long ago it was." Ruko rubs her neck again. "But there were bad men. I remember that."

Bad men? It's much too unnerving to hear that phrase in a situation like this. That could mean rapists or murderers, predators who could have found Miku.

"Did you see a girl with green hair?" I ask quickly. "In really long twin tails?"

To my surprise, Ruko nods.

"She didn't come when I called her," she sighs. "I tried to stop her from going that way, but I don't think she heard me."

I tense up. "Which way?"

Without even moving her eyes, Ruko stretches out an arm. Her finger points toward the trail up ahead.

Rin says it as I think it. "The orphanage."

If Rin heard her scream, and she isn't still lost in the woods, she must have encountered something horrifying down the trail.

That horrifying thing could be the immortal children.

Ruko doesn't seem to realize what we do. "I think the green-haired girl is with my friends," she says.

There's really nothing else to do. "We have to go to the orphanage," I tell Rin, who only nods with her blue eyes wide open.

We hold hands. Ruko walks beside us for a meter or two before I feel Rin flinch and tug at my arm. "Len," she whispers. I look up to see her jerking her head. "Her footprints."

I follow her gaze. Trailing behind us in the cloudy dirt are two sets of prints. One from my sneakers and one from Rin's.

I glance down at Ruko, trying to be subtle, trying to keep my pace. Her little feet, when they press into the dirt, make no imprint.

I don't know what this means. But Rin and I both know it's not good, and we let our instincts push us to turn and flee, kicking up the dirt between us and Ruko.

Of course, Ruko gives chase. "Wait!" Her voice, after being so low and soft, is now piercing and desperate. "My friends! We have to help my friends!"

I try to ignore her. It doesn't matter until I feel my toe cram into something. A log, I realize too late, as I swing forward and fall into the dirt.

In the corner of my eye, I see Rin's shoes stop and turn to me.

"Keep going!" I yell. I don't want Rin to be in this danger, whatever it is. I try to lift myself, but once I look over to my hand, I see the smaller, pale fingers reaching for it.

I look up into her red eye.

* * *

"Kagome, kagome..."

A circle of men in white coats and masks. White as snow, except for faded spots of scarlet. In the center, the "oni" is a child in light blue pajamas, sitting on her knees. She has black pigtails with long bangs that fall over the gauze blindfold.

The circle shifts. The men hold their gloved hands behind their backs. One of them holds something with a wide, rusty blade.

"The bird in the cage..."

The men sing together softly, muffled by their masks. The "oni" has her fists clenched, and she's biting her lip, as if anticipating something with annoyance. Are the men playing too slow for her?

"When, oh, when will it come out?"

The circle continues to shift. One man seems to stifle a giggle. Two others glance at each other through fogged glasses.

"In the night of dawn, the crane and turtle slipped..."

The circle stops suddenly.

"Who is behind you now?"

The "oni" swallows, and slowly parts her trembling lips. Her voice shudders so much it's almost inaudible. "Mister We--"

" _You lose._ "

The blade flashes out from the man behind the girl. Two other men meet in the middle and grip their fingers around each pigtail as the blade is raised high before its side harshly strikes the back of the girl's neck.

The impact loosens the blindfold, and the girl's eyes are wide and teary as the blade slices through her. She opens her mouth wide to scream, but it is too late. Her throat overflows with her blood as the last of the flesh is sawed away.

The head falls over and rolls away from the circle of men surrounding her body. Her eyes are still wide open, tears frozen beneath each one.

One blue, one red.

* * *

The tears are still there when I see her again, staring down at me.

"The bad men had my friends," she softly declares.

My gaze falls to her neck. The gauze, the blindfold, casts a small shadow over the area beneath her jaw, but if I squint I can see a jagged, deep red line circling it.

"Y-you're dead," I stammer.

Ruko nods. "I'm sorry. I just thought that you would be able to save them."

"What do you mean?"

"My friends. They're still in there. I was only trying to help them. That's why the bad men made me play with them. And I lost, because I didn't really know their names." She pauses to rub her neck. Her fingers must be stroking against that nasty scar every time. "The green girl went that way, too."

The reminder fills me with a paralyzing chill that tenses up my muscles.

"What are they gonna do to her?" I demand.

"I don't know," Ruko confesses. "I haven't been there since the bad men were there. I didn't know that they left. I thought they would take the green girl's brain like it said on the papers."

"The papers?"

"The bad men played with me because I found the papers. It was all German, so I could only read the pictures. They wanted to take our brains and mess them up so that we wouldn't die."

I should know this. I read the story. But this doesn't even feel real.

Ruko stands up, prompting me to do the same. "Where's the girl with the bow that looks like orange leaves?"

I tilt my head, having no idea what she's talking about.

"The girl you were with," she clarifies. "She ran away. Where is she?"

As if on cue, I hear her yell carry over.

"Len! I'm coming! I've got my knife!"

Instinctively, I shove Ruko aside as I flinch foward. "She's safe! Don't hurt her!"

As soon I catch sight of her running with her knife raised, she skids to a stop and lowers it. Her eyes glance from me to Ruko. "Why doesn't she leave footprints?" she asks me, keeping her fascinated gaze on her. "Did she tell you?"

"She's dead."

Rin squints. "What's that s'posed to mean? She's right there, isn't she?"

"I think I'm a ghost," Ruko explains softly. "So the ground doesn't know that I'm walking on it."

Rin leans forward and brushes her free hand against Ruko's raven hair. "If you're a ghost, how can I feel your hair?"

"I don't know."

Rin's fingers reach one of the pigtails and get snagged on one of its snarls. Rin tenses as her fingers suddenly stop. The unexpected tug on Ruko's hair pulls on her head.

The jagged circle on her neck begins to widen.

"Rin, stop!" I pull her arm away, but it's too late. Ruko's eyes widen, and her head tips off of her shoulders.

I dive down to let it fall into my hands. I want to drop it immediately. I can feel the crusted blood against the back of it. But it's so horrifying to suddenly be holding a child's wide-eyed, blinking head, staring at dull blue and vibrant red eyes.

"Holy shit," Rin whispers. I tear my eyes up to see her staring at Ruko's empty neck. Blood is slowly trickling from there, as well. I snap out of my daze and stand up to push the head back on.

"God, I'm sorry," Rin mutters as we watch Ruko put her hands to her ears, her eyes still wide. "I didn't...I really didn't think that would happen."

I can see her trembling. When I hold her hand, I can see mine shaking too.

"They cut off my head." Ruko faces Rin, but her eyes are unfocused. "They cut off my head because I was a bad child. I was a bad child because I didn't want them to touch my brain. I didn't want them to hurt my friends. I didn't--"

"I  _know that_!" Rin snaps, shooting her hand forward to lift Ruko's chin. "Look, I know. I read all about that stuff online. It didn't say your name so I didn't know until you...until you looked at me like that."

Ruko doesn't respond.

"Rin." I tighten my hold on her hand. "We have to go to that orphanage, alright?"

"I know." Rin lifts her hand back up to rub her eyes. "I know, I know."

"And we have to help those children."

"How?"

"I don't know." We look up at each other more directly, and I add, "But Miku is somewhere over there. And she doesn't know how to help them. We'll all work together."

Rin simply nods.

"Can I go with you?" Ruko speaks up again. "I want to see my friends. And I want to see the green girl."

"Yeah," Rin replies right away, giving her a grin. "Come walk with us."

Ruko returns the smile. When she does that, she looks like any other child. So innocent and sweet and happy and ignorant.

Even with the bloody circle hiding on her neck.

Without another word, we begin to walk on the path again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know ruko is 6'5" but that doesnt serve the plot well enough


	3. Separation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i actually went and wrote a summary of the whole story for myself to refer to when writing this bc i can't improvise. that's why there's more tags, despite most/all of them not appearing until later chapters.
> 
> and i didn't establish which parts of the summary belong to which chapters so there might be some awkward chapter endings oops

Down the trail, trees begin to appear again, forming another part of the woods until stopping at the wide clearing.

The orphanage is immediately recognizable. A lone, faded white brick building, windows totally obscured by vines hanging from the roof. The rusty brown doors, however, are visible, the vines stopping short above the doorway.

The path of smooth stones is almost totally buried in moss and weeds, but I can still feel their surface against my shoes as we slow to a stop.

"If we go in," Rin says, "would we  _have_ to go to that playroom where the immortal orphans are?"

"Isn't that the point?" I ask.

"Well, yeah, but like...what if we go to another room first?" Rin crosses her arms in thought. "Are there, like...demons hiding in there?"

"I don't think anything bad could happen to us until we go to the playroom." Which means Miku, in her natural curiosity, would be in mortal danger by now. But I don't say that part out loud. I don't need Rin to be as terrified as I am. "So we could just go in the building and think up a plan or something."

"We can go to my room." We look down at Ruko as she speaks. "I remember where it is. I shared it with my friends Teto and Neru. I think they're still alive in there."

Still alive...I don't like the sound of that. 

"But they're too busy playing to go to our room," Ruko continues. "So we can be all alone."

"In the dark?" Rin adds carefully.

"No. I have a lamp." She pauses. "I think I have a lamp. I hope nobody stole it."

"We'd be lucky if it still worked," Rin sighs. "The orphanage has been abandoned for, like...seventy years, hasn't it?"

Ruko's eyes widen. "Seventy?"

"I'm just guessing. I don't really know." Rin grabs my hand again. "Anyway, let's go. Show us the way to your room, Ruko."

Ruko nods and leads us to the door. "Can you open it for me?" she asks. "I'm not strong enough."

Rin and I don't have very strong arms either, but I swing the door open easily. "Miku must've used this door," I observe. I point to the top of the doorway. Now that we're closer, I can see the vines covering the building more clearly. "Look, the vines are cut there. And the door wasn't shut too tight. It was used super recently."

The inside of the building is extremely dark. I have good enough eyesight to see at least a little, but for Rin, it's probably pitch black. I tighten my hand around hers.

As we walk, I start feel soft crunching under our shoes. When Ruko suddenly stops to flinch and gasp, I look down to see little shards.

"Is this glass?" Rin asks. "What's a bunch of glass doing on the floor?"

"I think it's the light fixtures," I reply. "I guess they were made of glass and something broke them all. So now the lights don't work."

"Hiroshima isn't far from here, either," Rin adds. "I guess when the bombings happened that might've affected this place a little."

"They're cutting up my feet," Ruko complains softly.

I can see Rin's eyes widen next to me. "How can you feel pain?"

"I don't know. But I can." She turns slightly to gaze up at Rin. "Like how it hurt a  _lot_ when you tore my head off. Don't do that again, please."

Rin cringes. "S-sorry."

Ruko smiles a little before lifting herself to her toes and continuing to walk, occasionally teetering a little but always catching her balance in time. Eventually she slows to a stop and lets her feet fall flat again. "Here it is. I used to sleep here." She points at the wooden door we've stopped next to.

"How do we know it's not full of corpses or anything?" Rin worries.

"The story says that this building is supposed to smell like corpses," I remind her. "And it doesn't. I think we're fine."

I close my fingers around the cold, rusty knob and turn the door for us. As I suspected, this room is just as dark, and the light from the window is blocked by vines.

"Do you know where your lamp is?" I ask Ruko.

Rin tugs on me and speaks up first. "If the lights are all broken, the lamp's probably broken too."

If only we brought flashlights. How could I have not considered that when we were preparing earlier? It would've been more necessary than this basket of bread I've been carrying around.

"Uh...we could open the window and use our knives to cut the vines?" Rin suggests tentatively.

Ruko shakes her head. "The windows don't open."

Rin smiles. The shred of light reflects from her determined grin. "We'll just have to break it, then!"

I see another gleam appear nearby, on the knife Rin raises as she charges toward the window. I don't actually expect her to do much with a knife and a fist, so the crashing shatter that follows makes me flinch back against the door.

Rin gives a thumbs-up, outlined by the light through the vines, before slashing her knife at them. I follow and hack at it with her until enough vines are away for us to see outside.

The only thing that can be seen from here is the trees. But something seems a little off. Something about the vibe of this place is unnerving.

It's mostly the way it smells.

But there's really no time to figure that out. We pull our heads back in. Ruko is standing patiently in the middle of the room, gazing at us. She doesn't seem interested at all in her old room. After all, on its own, it's nothing special. The beds are stripped, and all the surfaces are cloaked in the dust that dances in the sunlight. There are a few cobwebs, which do make me feel a little on edge. I don't do so well with spiders. Rin says I have arachnophobia, but I don't think it's  _that_ serious.

There are two dressers. That's the most logical place to start looking for clues, but then we hear a sound that should be impossible.

Three quick, soft knocks on the door, a short pause, and one more.

My eyes are drawn swiftly back to Ruko, who looks just as cluelessly startled as I feel. I didn't think of any plan for if someone came. I just know the two possibilities. It's either Miku, or one of the children.

Is it worth waiting for a voice?

The knocks don't repeat. But there are no footsteps, and the door doesn't open. Keeping my voice as low and quiet as possible, I ask, "Should we ignore that?"

"What if it's Miku?" Rin softly argues with wide eyes. "We can't just leave her alone out there."

"It's not her," Ruko states.

"How do you know?" Rin demands.

"Because only Neru knocks that way."

Neru, one of the children who used to live in this room. This means they're one of the immortals. Why would they come all the way back here from the playroom? They couldn't have heard the window shatter, right?

"Ruko..." A low, nasally voice, sounding like a sick little girl, drifts from behind the door. "I can hear you breathing, Ruko...I missed you, Ruko..."

If Neru can hear the breathing of a ghost girl, she must know that Rin and I are here, too. We exchange a glance, and I know that Rin realizes the same thing. What could Neru do to us? She seems to be by herself, but the immortal children have mutilated brains and twisted motives. If she sees us, she'll want to take us to the playroom, right? That would be the point of no return.

The knob turns. Ruko turns around to face it, twiddling her fingers in panicked anticipation. 

The girl that appears is clearly very young. She must only be about three feet tall. Her blonde hair is messily tied in a ponytail on her side, long enough to reach her little waist. Her amber eyes, the pupils strangely gray, widen. "Oh...you have new playmates, too, Ruko..."

"You have new playmates?" Ruko asks, her voice a constant tremor.

Neru nods. "A green girl came."

Rin grabs my hand. That could only be one person.

"She's a good playmate. She's good at Kagome Kagome." Neru tilts her head and grins, just wide enough to send a small shudder down my spine. "We're going to keep her. And fix her so that she can play with us forever. And now..." She raises her arm to point in our direction, almost mechanically. "There's two more playmates. They can play with us forever and ever, too..."

Rin tugs on my arm and points to the window. That's the only way we can escape this situation. I abandon the bread basket and grip onto the window frame, but the window isn't easy to pull ourselves out of. Not only are we skinny, but the shards at the edges pierce our skin, and it takes a lot of willpower to work past it. We make it as far as our heads when Rin suddenly falls back onto the floor. Just as I turn my head, I feel her hands around my legs, and I'm shoved out, landing on my stomach outside. I get to my feet and look back through the window to see Rin getting dragged away by the arm.

Ruko is nowhere to be seen. I look around for any sign of her, but there's no trace of black hair or blue clothes. She's completely vanished in the time it took for Rin to shove me out the window.

We could've both made it out if we had the time. But we didn't. So Rin took the bullet for me. And whatever happened to Miku is going to happen to her.

I try to pull myself back through the window, but it's no use. My hands are too cut-up and bloody to bear any more of it, too weak to pull up my weight.

I'd pass out if I tried too hard. Then it'd be too late to save Rin and Miku. My only option is to go through the front door.

I take a few steps. The strange smell from before grows stronger, and then I hear a sharp crunch at my feet.

I look down and lift my foot to see yellow bone and a rotted piece of pale flesh on the sole of my shoe.

A headless skeleton with scraps of a corpse clinging onto it lies in front of me.


	4. A Period of Weakness

The bones aren't even attached anymore. This person must have been dead for months. But shouldn't the skin be all gone? Just the sight of it rotted against bone brings bile up in my throat. I can't bring my clammy fingers to pull off what's stuck to my shoe. I wiggle the foot around as if hastily shooing a fly.

It only takes a moment to notice the skull a couple of feet ahead. I step cautiously closer, trying to be gentle to my stomach. But it's no use. The skull has cobwebs in the eyeholes and something black and bulbous crawling over it.

That's what forces the bile out of me.

It's disgusting. I feel so sick and disgusting. Sickened and disgusted by the sight of this person's remains. This  _child's_ remains. It's small, decapitated. This is Ruko's body.

The twisting burn in my chest stops me from walking much further. My heart is pounding so fast, I feel like it's going to burst into acid and spill out my throat, the same acid drenching my whole body. It's too much. This is all too much.

Miku's gone. Rin's gone. This is Ruko's rotted body. With a spider so close to me. It can poison me any second. And Ruko's nowhere. She left when Rin sacrificed herself for me. Is it because of the spider? I want to get away, but every part of me burns so much. My hands are still stinging with dirt and blood, and soon the stench of its iron taste fills my drying, flaming throat. Tingles creep over my legs. Poison, white-hot horror shoots through my bones. Am I going to be left here to die? Alone, wondering what sort of nightmare my best friends have been forced into?

Why? Why am I so pathetic? Why did this nauseating dread happen so fast? Is it a dream? Is it just a sick, psychedelic, hyperrealistic dream?

* * *

 _Len! Can you hear me?_ Two shrill voices surround me.  _Are you okay? Look at us, Len._

My eyesight is blurred with drowsiness, tears and sweat falling from my lashes like dew off leaves. My pulse feels like a meteor burning through my veins. It's so hot. Why is it so hot?

I can see two pairs of wide-open blue eyes staring straight at me. A faint blue light glows from behind them on the floor, illuminating the outlines of blonde and turquoise hair.

 _What's wrong?_ Rin lowers her voice a little, but her obvious concern lets the tremble peek through.  _Did you have a bad dream?_

I nod silently. Miku leans in and wraps her slender arms around me.  _Oh, no...do you need to talk about it?_

I don't remember the dream. Just the suffocation of despair and dread. Something cold and toxic and stinging that hasn't yet faded out. It chokes my words down, and I shake my head.

Rin places her hand on my shoulder, a gesture that sends a faint wave of relief on its own.  _Do you want some ice water?_

 _I'll get the water,_ Miku immediately offers.  _I think he probably feels better being alone with you._

Why? Because we're twins? I wish I could correct her, and remind her she's just as important to me, that she and Rin are the most important parts of my life, but by the time a cracked rasp escapes through my throat, she's already left the room.

Rin leans against me, and in the next second I feel her warm hug.  _It's okay now, Len. We're home, remember? Miku's staying for the night again._

 _I know,_ I whisper. I can't manage to be much louder. If Rin and Miku weren't here, I don't think I could make any sound at all.  _Sorry, Rin._

_Please don't say sorry._

We sit in quiet, welcoming darkness until Miku returns. I feel the cold rim of a glass press against my lips.  _Here,_ Miku murmurs. She seems a little dejected somehow, but I can't bring myself to mention it. I let the chilled water stream through and soothe my throat.

It clears it out, releases me from the shadows of the mortifying, abstract experience.  _Thank you._ I look Miku in the eyes--I can see the blue twinkle through the dark--and smile for her.  _I'm sorry I always need you like this, to make me feel safe._

 _We're your friends,_ Miku reassures me.  _And knowing you're okay makes me feel safe, too._

* * *

I wish I'd brought some water. It always calms me like that. Maybe if I had an icy river in me, I wouldn't have to anticipate a spider's lethal touch.

The next best thing is to remember why I'm here. I'm at the orphanage because I want to find Miku and save her from whatever horror story lies in there.

After all, Miku has done so much for us. For  _me._ Our parents were always working, and while I'm sure they cared about us, they couldn't understand my constant anxieties like Miku did. She's always been so accepting of everything that I thought was wrong with me. Her cheerfulness has let me look past my depression and see the value of life and all the little beauties in it. And I'm always willing to return the favor and remind her of her own value.

It's worth it. It'll all be worth it, when I see Miku and Rin safe and happy.

I don't feel the tracks of the spider anymore. My hands, covered in dirt and sweat and blood, are planted on the ground. I don't remember falling forward, but I couldn't have hurt myself much. My arms only ache a little when I push myself up off the ground. I turn my head just enough so that I can only see that skull on the ground. The spider still rests there, and I look ahead and force my legs to walk away as fast as I can before it gets worse.

I don't think I could be okay. Even as I will myself to just keep going forward and turn the corners until I find the entrance, I feel the fog of the realization lingering behind me.

That was the corpse of a child.

_That was Ruko's dead body._

When they beheaded her, did they just toss her remains out the window? No, the windows in that orphanage don't open. Did they carry her outside to dispose of their deed? Did she bleed out on the very path I'm walking on?

Why was she even killed? She said it was because she was stealing documents from the scientists so that she could help her friends. Was she the only one who understood how revolting those experiments were?

After seeing Neru drag Rin away like that, it's hard to think of her and the other orphans as people to be saved, but I can't betray Ruko. She's the one who knew these children before they were broken, and she was murdered trying to save them. And the fact that there's still bits of skin left there after all these decades makes me wonder just how powerful her motivation is. Maybe it's some strange spiritual thing that slows the decay of her body. It's admirable, even if it's so disturbing to think about. If I can find her again, somewhere in the building, I think she'll be important to the mission.

In fact, she's probably with Rin now, right? I didn't see her in the room when I looked through the window. There'd be no reason to go anywhere else other than following Rin.

I find the entrance of the building again. It's an odd feeling to not sense any rush of shaky dread when I pull the door open.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me, writing this: this is so gross what the fuck. What The Fuck why did i make myself do th
> 
> also yeah i don't really like this story either but i'll keep writing it bc i spent a lot of minutes writing out the plot and the "4/15" would piss me off (note: 15 is just an estimate idk how long it'll actually be, i put 15 bc 4/? pisses me off even more yknow?)


	5. Mutilated Memory

It's too quiet in the building, but it's actually more confusing than frightening. After all, Rin was able to hear Miku scream from in here last night when we were all the way out on the border of the woods. Her hearing is obviously much more impressive than mine, but it's nothing superhuman. If something is going on in this building, there should be at least some sort of noise, like echoing footsteps or muffled voices.

If I didn't know any better, I'd think everything I saw in here was an illusion. If it weren't for Rin and Miku, I wouldn't still be walking forward. I wouldn't be squinting in the dark to watch for any movement of shadows or reflections. I wouldn't be reciting to myself in my head the directions to the playroom that Rin was dragged away to.

I want to call her name, but I want to take refuge in this silence while I can. It crumbles away once I turn a corner. I stop just to be sure it isn't my own echo. It's distant steps. Small, light ones. They're accompanied by a faint, continuous scrape on a wooden wall.

I let my eyes make out the shape. It's a child, of course, one arm completely obscured behind her back. She has dark pigtails, but they're too low and she's too thin to be Ruko. That recognition is a brief startle, a single, firm tug on my heart. It's less of a sense of horror, even knowing what she could have done to my friends, and more of a wave of cluelessness. Should I hide? Turn around? Run past her? Talk to her? My indecision lets the girl see me, and I can barely catch sight of a gray twinkle in her big eyes as she patiently begins to walk toward me. As she approaches, I can make out her frame more clearly. Her left arm isn't hidden, it's missing.

She speaks first, a breathy, almost deadpan statement. "You're Rin Kagamine's twin."

She knows about Rin, then. And she doesn't give me enough time to ask where she is, how she is, what the children did.

"We took her to play with us," she confirms, stepping closer. There doesn't seem to be blood or guts or anything on her kimono, so that's a good sign for a few seconds. "We were gonna play Kagome Kagome like we do with all our other friends. But she's different. She's like us."

Even if I could have a chance to respond, my mind is blank now.

"She already can play forever with us. But it makes her sad. I think she's like Ruko. It made Ruko sad too. So she ran away. And she doesn't want to be back home." Finally, she stops, right in front of me, and tilts her head. I see a small smile on her face. "Do you remember?"

I just don't understand what this girl means. How is Rin like these children, like Ruko? Does she think Rin is also an orphan? Does she think Rin was one of the victims of the immortality incident? I can't imagine what Rin could have done to make her think that. Rin's always been a good liar, good at acting innocent while pulling pranks, but somehow I don't think stuff like that would work in a place like this. Children are naïve, sure, but these children have been around for nearly a century now. It would take real mastery to deceive them.

The only way I know how to react now is, "What are you talking about?" My voice is more faint and weak than I meant it to be, but the girl seems to understand just fine.

"We took her to the playroom. And that made her remember why she can play with us. It makes her sad. She was crying and bleeding like Ruko did when the doctors told us to say goodbye."

But that just raises more questions. Did this girl watch Ruko die? When Ruko showed me her memory, I didn't see any other children. And why would Rin be bleeding? If she was bleeding like Ruko did one time... "What did you do to her?"

The girl leans closer. "I'm Yuki. I don't remember you. Do you remember me?"

Something gleams in her lone hand.

" _What did you do to Rin?_ "

"Rin is crying in the playroom," Yuki responds simply. Her smile seems paralyzed around her words, growing more and more empty. "She remembers. But you don't remember. I don't remember her. Maybe when you ran away, I forgot. But Ruko ran away too--"

"Ruko's  _dead._ " It slips out of my throat without warning. It's not even important. This façade of ignorance is starting to become grating. The worst thing is that Yuki talks about Rin and Ruko in the same way. I know Ruko wants to help these children, but I can't bring myself to help anyone who hurts my sister like those people hurt Ruko.

Yuki simply shakes her head. "But I saw her giving bread to Teto. I saw her come back. Like you and Rin."

I clench my fists, trying to resist tightening one around Yuki's little wrist. "Where the fuck is my sister?"

"She's crying in the playroom--"

"What did you  _do_?"

"I was busy. Rana found this knife and she gave it to me." Yuki lifts her hand to reveal the shining blade. "We're gonna use it to see if we can have Miku play with us. And when Rin stops crying, she can be happy and remember us too."

She takes a step closer to me, in sync with her quickening thud of my pulse.

"You don't remember, though," Yuki continues. "Come play with us. Then you can remember. And if you act like Miku we can take you and make sure you--"

Something happens, too quick and spontaneous for me to process before I'm on my back on the floor, something weakly sprawled over my legs. For a second my heart jumps up in my thoat. It calms down just as quickly, before a light flickers alive where Yuki was standing, and I hastily get on my feet to look closer.

The source is a flimsy lantern, constantly flickering between bright and dull. It's old and cheap, and it can't last for much longer. If I squint, I can see the strange, dark splatter over it, trickled from the thin, cut-up arm holding the rusty handle. The other arm grips a long, silver rod of some kind. There's blood on that, too, but it looks much fresher. It must be from Yuki, lying on her stomach beside me and whimpering softly.

The fingernails on the sweaty, bloody hands are strangely jagged and blunt. I think there's blood on the tips. The face in front of me is barely illuminated, but I can see the dried tears and the whites of Rin's eyes.

Every kind of logic would tell me it's unsafe, but the relief that she's even alive is too strong for me to not tightly wrap my arms around her body. Her rapid, muffled heartbeat echoes against my ear, her warm ragged breath brushing against me.

"Are you okay?" Maybe I shouldn't ask now, maybe I shouldn't be standing here against her chest. But I need to. I need to hear Rin right now. I need to be with her right now.

It's only a soft crack in her throat at first. Then the crack spreads into her next words, the words that feel too unreal.

"Miku's dead."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this has actually been finished for a while but i was iffy on publishing it until now......i've decided to accept that this is an unbelievably cringey, edgy story that i already planned the whole plot of


	6. Rin's Breakdown

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: self harm/suicide ideation

The first stage of grief is denial. It comes right after you're told that someone you love is dead. Everyone knows this. I know this. But my mind can't seem to register it as denial or disbelief or anything other than a lack of response.

Rin doesn't tell lies about this sort of thing, but the words "Miku's dead" feel like a blatant one.

"Miku isn't dead." My thoughts come from a small voice behind me. I pull away from Rin and turn to see Yuki staggering to her feet. "She fell asleep because we played with her for so long."

"I  _saw_ her," Rin asserts. Her eyes look icier than they've ever been, her glare furious enough to be piercing Yuki's soul. "You _killed_ her."

"No, Miku's sleeping. We're going to give her the--"

"Do you have  _any_ idea what you sick demonic murderers are even doing?"

Yuki smiles gently. "I think you're confused. Because you remembered why you can't die. And it makes you feel really bad." Her hand lifts sluggishly over the bandage wrapped tightly around her empty left shoulder. "It hurt a lot. I remember too."

Rin pushes me away gently and takes a step toward Yuki.

"You know, it's been a really long time since I had two arms. I'm jealous of everyone else. And everyone else with one arm, they get to get new ones, and then one day they'll die with--"

She's struck to the floor again by the rod. This time, the impact knocks Yuki's knife out of her hand. Rin gasps, "There it is."

Yuki doesn't try to take the knife back, but she's conscious enough to sit up. "What?"

Rin kneels. "My knife. I lost it. Sometime after I saw Miku's body."

Yuki smiles. "Oh! When you remembered--"

"I didn't  _remember_ shit," Rin mutters, standing back up, her trembling fingers around the handle of her knife. "I saw Miku lying there. That's all that matters."

Something doesn't quite fit. Rin doesn't seem to know exactly how Miku was killed. Becsuse she's still alive, definitely, but there's even something wrong with that. Something bad happened with Rin, something that makes her think that she saw Miku's corpse. But what would that be?

Yuki doesn't seem to care either way. "But that's weird. Rana said she found that knife while she was looking for the, um...what's it called? The surgery stuff? I think Neru, too, she said you dropped it. But maybe you dropped something else. Oh, no, I don't think Neru ever got those in--"

 _"SHUT_ _UP!_ "

The forceful echo of Rin's cry shocks my whole body to stand unmoving for just a moment, a moment where only my eyes can follow Rin's knife as it's raised high above her head and brought to the skin on her other wrist. The skin on her arm that's already been clawed at with utter anguish, by the fingernails until they were worn down enough to crave something sharper. That would be the knife slashing a trail of scarlet across her wrist.

As soon as I can move, my impulsive instincts take control and pin her against the dilapidated wall, and force a meaningless question through my lips. _"_ _What are you doing?"_

The ice in her eyes trails down her cheeks again, her teeth bared as a deranged breath whistles through. "I'll show you," she growls. "I'll show you what I saw."

_What did they show her?_

"She's dead. They killed Miku." Rin holds me to her teary glare. "Don't you get it? We're not fucking heroes. These monsters killed Miku. She's dead." Then her head lowers, her lips trembling. "She's dead, she's dead, she's dead, she's dead, she's dead..."

As Rin repeats that horrible lie to herself under her shuddering breath, as my hands glide down to hers, Yuki slowly stands up. The blood from Rin's attacks is pooled all over the side of her face, but she doesn't seem to notice or care. "I think Rin's sad because she remembered why she can't die," she explains. "That's why she wants to bleed so much, I think. Most people, they die if they bleed enough. But now she's confused. She thinks Miku's dead. So, listen." She grins innocuously. "If we take her brain out, she won't remember anymore. So she can be happy. And then maybe she won't have to--"

 _"Stop it!"_ Finally, something rips through my throat, forcibly pulling my heart up with it. "I'm not letting you hurt her!"

Yuki gasps, but her smile remains. "I won't! I really think--"

 _"She's not immortal!"_ I tighten my hands, feeling the cold sweat in every fold of the skin. "I'm going to find out what you did. She's not immortal. And Miku isn't dead."

_"I'll show you!"_

At the same time Rin shouts the words, she lets her knife stay in my grip and tugs on my arm, not waiting for any sort of consent or question before running down the dark hall, in the direction of the playroom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you think i went overboard on the italics?


	7. Truths

I know Rin is deluded. I know that Miku is alive. That's why I'm not afraid to match her pace and let her lead me away. She'll see the truth, that Miku is going to be okay. And I'll see what's driven her to cut up her arms and believe that awful lie she keeps trying to tell me.

"I saw her. I saw her. I saw her body." Her voice is getting hoarser, like the lies are scraping through her throat. "I couldn't see her eyes. She was dead on the floor, and her hair was over her eyes. Were they open? Did she have to watch? She wasn't bleeding, they probably choked her. Or they just cleaned it up. That's why they're all weird. They're trying to erase the evidence. Because they killed her. They  _killed_ her. God..."

I wish we could stop for a moment. Just a moment, so I could hold her and brush away her tears, the same way she does on those nights when I wake up with a jolt from visions of her and Miku getting hurt, mutilated, murdered. And I wish I could whisper like she does through the shaking breath pouring in and out of me, when she tells me, "It's okay. It was just a dream. We're safe."

But this isn't a dream. It's a lie. It has to be a lie. Why can't I keep telling her that it's a lie? Why won't that come through my lips? 

As her lies flow, slowly devolving into teary mumbles, I keep quiet and follow her erratic pace. Now that the lantern's abandoned far behind us, it's hard for my eyes to get used to the darkness. But I know that we're headed straight to the truth, to Miku's safety, so it doesn't make a difference how dark it is.

Not until I catch a flash of pink ahead of us.

That's when everything stops. The footsteps, the broken lies, and the gasps for air halt. The girl with pink braids notices. She swiftly twirls around to face us. She's only about as tall as a toddler, so her hands are obscured by the oversized sleeves of her kimono. A very thin glimmer pokes out from one of the sleeves.

It looks like a needle, but I'm too far away to tell if it's a medical needle or a sewing needle. I'm not sure which would be worse, but there's no point being afraid to find out. I have to know the truth, and so I ask for it as bluntly as possible. "What did you do to Miku?"

I can't see the girl's smile, but I can hear it trickling into her words. "Miku's tired because we played for so long. That's why she fell asleep. But we have to make sure she doesn't fall asleep again so that we can keep playing with her. And to do that, we have to make her sleep again." She raises her arm to let the sleeve fall, revealing a filled syringe. "Isn't that funny?"

I know exactly what she means, and it's horrifying, but I need to register that Miku is awake, alive, untouched, before I cry for her.

There is a silence that lasts just a little longer than a heartbeat, and I can feel Rin flinch. With the very faint light, I can see the entire circles of white around her irises.

"Oh my God." Her mouth is the only thing that isn't petrified. "I'm already going insane."

I couldn't hear any response, so for a second I worry that none of it is a lie, but it has to be, it must be, because the girl with braids gasps, "Oh! It looks like Miku's awake again! That's perfect!" As she steps closer, I can see her smile gleaming innocently. "My name's Rana! And you're Miku's friends, right? You two can watch, okay? And after Miku's fixed, we can fix you, too, and we can all play together!"

Rin tightens her sweaty grip on my hand. "Okay." Her voice is somehow steady again. "Take us."

Rana nods and twirls back around to begin leading us down the hall, the syringe needle still protruding from her kimono sleeve. She's planning to stab that into Miku, isn't she?

Then a memory clicks. The story we read says that an eight-year-old girl stole the German scientists' research and destroyed as much of their work as possible. That must be the papers Ruko mentioned, after she showed me how she was murdered. Is some of that research still hidden away in Ruko's bedroom? Is that why Neru opened the door before we could begin a real discussion?

All these children have been talking about "fixing" Miku so that they can "play forever." They know exactly what the German scientists did to them. They know that they suffered surgeries to remove the parts of the brains that let them age and die. And instead of trying to escape, they've decided to find company. That syringe that Rana's holding must be full of anaesthesia. They're going to try and give Miku brain surgery and immortalize her.

They're mutilated and deformed, but they're still scared children. If I could really get close to one and look in their eyes, I wonder if I could see any sort of wish to be human again. But this can't be what'll save them. Could  _anything_  save them?

I'm not sure there's any humane way to help them. Freeing them from their immortality means enabling them to die, if not actually killing them. I don't think I could do that. After all, they haven't hurt Miku and Rin. Definitely not. Rin had an anxiety attack and lied to herself. That's all. As long as I hold her hand and let her see for herself that everything will be okay, she'll know.

The hall reaches a dead end, and we meet a wooden door that's tightly shut. It seems different than every other door somehow. It's hard to tell in the dark, but I think it's red instead of brown. The slit underneath is different as well, filled with the glow of color and light rather than dusty darkness.

Despite the movement of the colors, there are no muffled footsteps or voices from behind the door. We stand in total silence as Rana patiently lifts a small hand to turn the knob and push it open.


	8. Rescue, Reunion, Revelation

At the creak of the door, the noise erupts.

"Rin! Len!" A sweet voice cries for us, and despite the anguish filling each syllable, it's the most wonderful sound in the world.

But there's no time to be grateful. We can see Miku, awake, alive, vibrant blue eyes wide open. Her thin legs try fruitlessly to kick her body forward, but the pairs of arms restraining her must be too strong.

Miku clenches her fists and grits her teeth, jerking her head to gesture to the children holding her back. They don't seem to be trying very hard, and easily look in Rana's direction with empty smiles.

"Rana!" the younger one, a tiny boy with bright green hair, greets her. "She's awake now! And Neru found instructions!"

Miku shakes her head violently. "Please...this isn't going to fix anything, I'll die..." She forces a grin. "I can't play with you if I'm dead..."

"Of course you can!" The other child is a slightly taller girl with rose-colored hair drills. There's bandages wrapped tight all around her skull, mostly the forehead, but her mouth moves just fine. "Rana is just gonna make sure you don't die!"

Rin and I look up at each other at the same time. There's no sign of disbelief or shock on her face. The only hint of emotion is her tightened brow as she firmly instructs, "You get Ryuto. I'll get Teto."

I don't know how or why Rin knows both their names. I don't know what Miku has been thinking and feeling in this room all this time. I just know that the best thing to do as slash at the little boy's arms with my knife so that they may loosen their hold on Miku. It works, sort of. He doesn't quite let go even as he flinches and yelps, but his arms nearly separate, and Miku takes the chance to yank her arm free. Ryuto reaches for her again, muttering something like "please don't run, please don't run," but I'm able to react in time. I don't stab or slash him again--even if I can't kill him, it feels wrong to hurt him so much--but shoving him away with the flat side of the blade seems to work while Rin wrestles Teto away.

Miku breaks free and bolts for the open door, needlessly calling "Rin, Len, follow me!" as the two of us turn and run, barely escaping the hands of the two children behind us. There's no time to shut the door, no time to turn around, no time to speak or think or do anything but follow those teal-hued pigtails so that I can never lose sight of them again.

Miku throws open the door to a random room that seems empty of anything but darkness. I hear it slam shut again behind us, followed by our collective panting as one of them fumbles around with something. Something flickers on and sheds a weak white light on us. It's a small flashlight, in Miku's hand.

My eyes are then drawn to her face, staring back at me in disbelief, and back down as a trembling, cut-up hand tentatively grasps hers. Then a sob, muffled by clamped lips. In the scarce light we have, I can barely see Rin holding her mouth shut with her other hand as her gleaming tears trickle over it.

We all fall to our knees, the flashlight dropping to the dusty wooden floor and rolling a few inches as we pull each other into a shaky hug.

Rin lowers her hand to gasp for air through her mouth, murmuring in between breaths. "Miku, I...I saw you dead...you were dead...they killed you..."

"They didn't kill me." Miku's eyes are closed, firmly holding both my right hand and Rin's left in her own. "They kept me up in there all night...kept talking about surgery and immortality...they wouldn't let me leave all night, just kept circling around me...and I must've passed out in the morning..."

"I-I heard you scream." Rin sniffles. "We shouldn't've gone home..." She quickly glances up at me. "Len, we should've gone in after her..."

Miku opens her eyes again and gives me the smallest smile. "It's okay. I wouldn't have wanted you to come unprepared. And you're here now." She sighs and lowers her head. "So let's go home, okay?"

There's something unfinished. Earlier, when Rin thought she saw Miku's corpse and attacked Yuki...Yuki really didn't mean any harm.

_"If we take her brain out, she won't remember anymore. So she can be happy. And then maybe she won't have to--"_

What was Yuki trying to say? She thought Rin was immortal, and that the brain surgery was too traumatic for her to bear. Did she think removing her brain would fix it? It sounds morbid, but if she thought letting Rin die was better than forcing her to play, then maybe she really wanted to help. Just like Ruko does.

Now that I think about it, I haven't seen her at all since we were in her bedroom.

"Rin." I pull gently on her arm. "When was the last time you saw Ruko?"

"R-Ruko...?" She shakes her head. "Not since Neru dragged me away. It doesn't matter. She wants us to save these kids, but...that's impossible. And they'll probably rip our brains out if we try."

It's strange how Yuki's first thought was to take out Rin's brain. It makes me wonder if the children really are immortal in the sense that nothing can kill them. The reason behind their immortality is an alteration to their brains. If their brains are removed, would that alteration still affect them?

"It's possible," I respond. "But it's...it's violent. We'd have to murder them."

Rin opens her mouth and eyes wide and takes a gulp of air, but in the next second a sudden thrashing against the door startles us, and Miku jolts up to her knees in front of us with alert, icy eyes.

Next to me, Rin digs her hand around in her pockets. "My knife," she mutters. "I dropped it. I lost it. Of course. Len--"

The doorknob turns with another thrash.

"They have my knife." Rin tugs on the back of Miku's thin white shirt. It's impressive that Miku's clothes are so clean and intact. They really didn't want to hurt her, did they? "What are they gonna do with my knife?"

She leans closer to me and reaches her hand toward my pocket, where my own knife is tucked, but it's too late. The door swings open, and Rana stands there.

With Rin's knife dangling from her left hand, she grins in our direction.

"I foooound you! Come on, it's time to play!"

Rin shudders, then neglects the need for a weapon to grab my wrist.

Miku is shivering as well, but her strained voice is steady. "I can't play with you," she answers. "I'm sorry."

"Of course you can!" Rana takes slow steps to approach Miku. "Don't worry! We know what to do now!"

The door is still open, and another figure approaches, only their outline visible in the light.

Rin lets go of me to wrap her arms around Miku's waist. She shakily whispers, "Please don't go again."

The figure at the door closes in on Rana.

"I won't," Miku whispers back. She glares up at Rana, still walking over. "You don't know what those scientists knew. You can't do this."

That makes Rana stop for just one second too long. A pale, ghostly hand grabs hers and spins her around, and Rin's knife clatters on the floor. Rin loosens her arms, and Miku cautiously leans forward to reach for it while Rana is distracted.

"Who are you?" Rana asks the girl holding her. "Are you new, too?"

It's Ruko. I can see the ouline of her pigtails, and the crimson gleam of her right eye looking down on Rana. Where has she been? I can't ask now. She must have a plan, and I have to keep quiet and let her carry it out.

But she doesn't say a word, either.

"You can play with us, too!" Rana giggles. "Miku can wait. We'll fix her after we play, okay?"

Ruko glides her hands to Rana's face and finally speaks. "I already played. I used to live here. I'm already dead."

"Hm?"

"Look at me. I'll show you."

Miku turns her head to furrow her brow at me.

"That's Ruko," Rin explains. "She's the ghost of the girl who got beheaded."

"The rebellious girl." Miku nods. "But most people here have mentioned her name. How doesn't Rana know?"

"I think maybe she died before Rana lived here," I guess. "And I think for some reason Ruko has the ability to share the memory of her murder, so..."

"Your brain is gone." Rana's sweet smile is gone, replaced by an empty expression. "You still didn't die?"

"I did die." Ruko pulls her hand to her neck, where the jagged bloody line is visible. "I'm a ghost now. See?" To demonstrate, she thrusts her other hand into Rana. It phases through her. "I woke up in the woods a long time ago. And I remembered what those bad men did to my friends, so I'm trying to help them. My name is Ruko."

"You're Ruko."

Seeing Rana suddenly so devoid of any motivation is unnerving. When these children are empty, they usually at least smile, even if it's without any emotion. I know she's still a little girl, and she just witnessed a brutal murder, but it's strange that it should shock her at all. Just minutes ago she was completely willing to cut open Miku's skull and into her brain.

"Do you get it now?" Ruko asks with a patient smile. "Miku can't play with you like you want her to. It'll only make your brain worse."

"Your brain..." Rana repeats softly. She lifts a finger to gesture to Ruko's neck. "All gone. It's all gone. It's..." Then a smile breaks through, her eyes lighting up again. "All gone, all gone, all gone...!" 

She shoves past Ruko and past the open door.

"All gone, all gone, all gone, all gone!"

Ruko gazes after her, totally still. Rin, Miku and I hold hands as we bring ourselves back up to our feet.

"All gone! All gone! All gone! All gone!"

Then Ruko turns around to face us. "I wanted to help her find out what she really needs. I hope that helps everyone else, too."

_"All gone! All gone! Ahahahaha!"_

"What's that supposed to mean?" Rin demands. Her left hand tightens around her knife. "What does she need?"

_"It's all gone, everybody! Ahahahahahaha--"_

The echo of Rana's laughter is cut off by a distant metallic slice.

Ruko swallows. "Let's...should we go see?"

It's still silent in the hall.

I can't look anyone in the eye now. "She can't...die...like that...right?"

"Like what?" Miku asks cluelessly.

I can still remember what I saw outside. Rin doesn't know about that. That's good. Seeing Ruko get beheaded was bad enough for her. But if it's so silent down the hall...

Ruko, Rin and Miku end up following her trail. I have to follow. I'd rather see the gruesome source of that slicing sound than be separated again. Miku keeps my hand in hers. I don't want her to see this either. But I know she's going to. Nothing I say can shield her from it.

"But it's impossible for her to do that," I murmur to myself. "There's another way. There has to be."

Ruko is the first to enter the room, the only one with the door left wide open. As soon as she steps in, her eyes bulge out, and her hands fly up to muffle her scream. Her knees shake violently as she stares ahead.

Nothing can stop Miku and Rin from walking ahead to see for themselves. I can't separate, so I follow behind. Miku, taller than both of us, obscures the view a little, but I can still see the pink braids limp on the floor, slowly soaking in the growing puddle of blood. Of course, Miku flinches and quickly steps away, tightening her hands on her mouth to hold back what I can only assume is vomit. She leaves the view open to me.

A view not too different from when I pulled myself out that broken window. Two pieces of a dead little girl. Only this time, I can see her smiling face, frozen in her giddy laughter.


	9. The End Justifies The Means

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi i changed the rating to M bc i keep writing myself into the "time to describe the horrific deaths of small children, asshole" corner...this story is edgy and i hate it but i'll be DAMNED if i dont finish this stupid thing

In the Kagome Kagome story, there was an excerpt from the journal of one of the German scientists. It revealed that he was able to see the ghost of the child that had been beheaded. He didn't realize she was a ghost, though. So she must've acted just like all the other children. Just like all the empty, deluded children. The children who'd been driven to be desparate for more company, to the point where they'd cut open someone's skull just to get them to stay.

But Ruko isn't like that at all. After all, she was the one who wanted us to help free them of their immortality. She didn't want any of us to get hurt. It makes sense. She never had gotten the surgery on her brain. Her head was cut off before it got to that point.

I know it's absolutely morbid, but I'd rather have her dead than have her torture herself for decades until she was forced into the same fate as poor Rana. I couldn't ask her if she feels the same way. She's existed for over half a century, but she's still a little girl, not to mention that Rana killed herself the same way Ruko was murdered. I can't look at her body for long. My gaze immediately turns to Ruko, her chalk-white hands still clamped over her mouth, her tears seeming to glow as they pour from her bulging eyes.

I step forward, hoping to try and guide her away from the sight, but she dashes over to the bloody head on the floor and collapses to her knees. Her violently shaking hands brush against the pink hair.

 _"It's all my fault!"_ she screams, choked up by her horror. "I killed her! I  _killed her!"_

I want to kneel beside her and reply that, no, it's not her fault, she's not the one who put all these children through such sadistic experiments that destroyed their lives. She's not the one who couldn't have a single shred of humanity, the tiniest bit of empathy for the sake of innocent children. She's not the one who abandoned the victims and tried to bury all the sin. But my throat is too dry to make a sound.

"I just wanted to help! That's all I wanted! I didn't mean it, I didn't mean it! This wasn't supposed to happen!  _This wasn't supposed to happen!"_

This can't be it. This can't be right. There's no way the only solution is to just decapitate all of them. There's no way. Even if we're ultimately doing this for their sakes, it would feel just as evil as those cursed experiments.

"Len?" Rin's eyes are just as wide as everyone else's, but it seems she can stay at least a little calm by averting them, staying back at the doorway. "It's like you said. We'd have to kill them. They all just wanna die anyway, don't they?"

"I can't do that."

Rin crosses her arms and glances at me, a silent beckon. "We only have two choices," she says as I slowly approach. "We could leave this behind, and let them suffer forever while some poor visitors end up getting trapped here, or we could...kill them."

"I know."

She reaches for my hand with her own. It's still trembling and sweating a little. We've really cornered ourselves here. No matter what happens, they have to be in pain.

Meanwhile, Miku is sitting against the wall, hugging her knees tightly. Her eyes have been glued to the ground for a while, but as we turn to her, she looks back up at us. "I-I think...one of them a-already managed to die, because Ruko was...she was the only one who could show her how."

That makes it sound like it was Ruko's fault. It really wasn't. Ruko's just one of the victims of all this sickening sadism.

"S-so...she must be a really strong spirit, right?" Miku's eyes lower to the ground again. "If she can...i-influence somebody like that...maybe she doesn't need us to help her..."

"No, no!" Ruko stands and spins around to face us. "Please don't leave me here alone! I'm not that strong, I can't do this all on my own! I can't!"

"Oh, no!" Miku scrambles to her feet. "No, no, I'm sorry, I'm sorry...I just...I think, y-you know what to do, right? If you were able to...to do that..."

"She wouldn't," Rin interjects. "She would've told us--"

"A fire."

Ruko's voice is so suddenly calm, like some epiphany just cleansed her. It takes a few unnerved seconds for any of us to react.

"Fire?" I ask. "You want to burn down the building? I think that would be easy to survive."

"They can't leave the orphanage. Even I can only go to the woods. If we set the building on fire, it'll collapse onto them." Ruko runs her fingers carefully through a pigtail. "It'll hurt, but that's...I think that's the best way they can die. And I can leave this place, too. I'll stay with them, and keep them from getting away." Her fingers tighten. "That's horrible, isn't it? But we'll all be free. It'll be okay in the end."

It really is horrible. And it's horrible that Ruko had to see Rana's decapitated corpse to be awoken to the fate that all the orphans need. All of this is just so _horrible_. The only thing that can keep my thoughts from knotting up into bile is Rin's hand around mine. She's biting her lip, only releasing it to ask, "Why didn't you tell us earlier?"

"I'm sorry." Ruko hugs her arms around herself. "I think...Rana made me figure it out."

Miku nods. "It's like I said. Only Ruko can influence them like that. Rana's spirit must be somewhere close, too."

That's true. If Ruko's still visible, and even tangible, because she isn't at peace, there's no way Rana hasn't started to exist in her plane. "Do you..." I hesitate, trying to settle on the right word. "...feel her?"

"No. I'm sorry. But maybe she can feel me. I know now, how we can all get away from the orphanage. We just have to be together."

My hand tightens around Rin's. It really is the only way to solve everything, isn't it? I ask her with a glance, and she nods with her brows furrowed.

"Let's plan, then," she decides softly. "Let's plan...how we're going to set fire to an orphanage."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the way this story is going reminds me of the edgy bullshit i wrote when i was 11

**Author's Note:**

> okay so i decided that i'm gonna eventually finish this fic, and not orphan or delete it, but i'm gonna disable comments. (except ao3 doesn't let you do that so it's actually enabling moderation and not accepting anything) like i've said, this fic ended up being way edgier and much more shitty than i originally expectrd, so i don't like it very much at all


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